Sound City was a Los Angeles studio where over a hundred certified gold and platinum albums were recorded during the 70’s and 80’s. It’s also the subject of a documentary of the famed analog studio and its fabled soundboard, which includes an in-studio jam with director Dave Grohl and some of his former bandmates.
Sound City was a Los Angeles studio where over a hundred certified gold and platinum albums were recorded during the 70’s and 80’s. It’s also the subject of a documentary of the famed analog studio and its fabled soundboard, which includes an in-studio jam with director Dave Grohl and some of his former bandmates.
Several factors are credited for the shabby studio’s success. Its amazing drum sound, the “sweet spot” in the room, and the then state-of-the-art Neve Soundboard–which cost $75,000 in the early 70’s–back when a house in Toluca Lake cost $26,000. Nothing in Studio A was updated, painted, or upgraded, from then on, for fear of altering the sound of the studio.
Neil Young, Tom Petty, Fleetwood Mac, The Grateful Dead, Cheap Trick, Foreigner, The Black Crowes, Metallica, Elvis Costello, Kid Rock, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Johnny Cash all recorded there. One of the employees relates how surreal it was the day the door opened, and in walked Tom Petty, Carl Perkins, and John Fogerty.
When his guitarist quit, drummer Mick Fleetwood remembered hearing an album by Buckingham/Nicks that was recorded at Sound Studio, and he was told he’d have to take Lindsay’s girlfriend, Stevie, as part of the deal. It was the “yes” heard round the world. Fleetwood Mac’s album hit the top of the charts, and ushered in the first flood of musicians wanting to record in the same studio where a historic album was recorded.
It happened again, just as every other studio in the industry was switching from analog to digital. Nirvana’s “Nevermind” hit #1, and served to delay the inevitable. When Sound City finally folded, Nirvana’s Dave Grohl purchased the Neve Recording Console that stacks of classic albums were recorded on, amazed that it wasn’t going straight into The Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame.
Grohl has to be one of the most multi-faceted rock stars in existence. His time with Nirvana alone places him in an elite group. Then, he switched from drums to guitar, and became the primary songwriter in Foo Fighters. And his popularity has remarkably never dipped.
That kind of across-the-board success and adulation doesn’t have to change a person, but it does tend to alter you. Tom Petty, Johnny Cash, and yes, Grohl, all seem to have been spun in a positive direction by their whirlwind success. One can’t help but notice that, unlike Sound City, they grew and changed.
You want to hate Grohl for being able to direct on top of everything else, but he seems to have accomplished all he has without pretension, so he deserves a pass. He also developed the story for Sound City, and it’s a good one. It begins as a straight forward documentary, then it does a Winchester ‘73 and follows the legendary Neve Soundboard as Grohl purchases it, moves it to his own studio, and invites a few of the people whose work made this particular board unique to cut another song on it accompanied by Grohl and his friends. Some big names show up to jam, including Stevie Nicks, Trent Reznor, and Paul McCartney.
Grohl’s greatest accomplishment seems to be that he remains a rock and roll fan, and a loyal friend. He invited two friends from his days with Nirvana; touring guitarist Pat Smear, and bassist Krist Novoselic, to hang out and play with Paul McCartney. And whether it’s for the cameras or not, 70-year-old Paul is rolling around on a dingy couch with Grohl and making it all look as fun as “A Hard Day’s Night.”
Drummers don’t typically get a lot of respect. When asked how he responds to people who say he isn’t a very good drummer, Ringo Starr replied: “I tell them I was the drummer in The Beatles.” Having played with Nirvana, Dave can build his argument on that same bedrock of success and, by reflection, so can Foo Fighter’s Taylor Hawkins. Drumming for Dave Grohl is almost more impressive than playing with John, Paul, and George, because Grohl himself is such an impressive drummer. I’d imagine The Iron Chef’s second-in-command makes a mean omelette.
Grohl and Hawkins are all over this film, and the accompanying album, and their enthusiasm for playing with their heroes is infectious. That’s the fun of these ventures for me; to watch today’s rock heroes revert to excited rock fans in the presence of their heroes. It never gets old. When Led Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones and Jimmy Page joined Foo Fighters onstage at Wembley Stadium, Taylor sang lead vocals and Grohl yelled: “Welcome to the greatest fucking day of my whole entire life!” The best day, indeed, and I found myself thinking: “Good for you, Dave.”
I named the best dog I ever owned “Dave” because he had an everyman quality. Like other famous laid-back Daves, Dave Chapelle, David Letterman, and Dave Thomas (only Dave Coulier skewed the “Cool Dave” curve) my Dave was a prince. He would bark at you because he was legally obligated to do so, but you got the idea it was never personal.
Speaking of great dogs, in Sound City we find out that the dog on Rick Springfield’s best-selling album is his dog Ronnie. Word is that Ronnie wasn’t allowed on the bed, but managed to ride Springfield’s comforter to the top. One of Sound City’s owners managed Springfield, and it paid off big-time when he hit #1 with the irrepressible “Jessie’s Girl.” The first check they received from RCA was for a million dollars. I didn’t know Neil Giraldo (Mr. Pat Benatar) supplied the crunchy guitar on “Jessie,” because the producer didn’t like Springfield’s guitar playing. Neither do I, but I have a soft spot for that album.
While they may seem slightly out of their depth, artists like Springfield, Ratt’s Stephen Pearcy, and Fear’s Lee Ving get a great deal of screen time. Dave Grohl gets off the best quote of the film praising punk rock pioneer Lee Ving: “That sound comes out of his face, man… That’s actually his voice!” One could draw a line between Ving’s and Kurt Cobain’s drain-cleaner-soaked vocal cords, and Ving certainly deserves to be featured.
A producer shows the old way of editing in the studio, meticulously cutting a two-inch tape with a single-edged razor blade and taping the splice back together, and he then demonstrates the same process in a few seconds on Pro Tools. But that wasn’t always the case. The joke told in the film is that they used to call it SLOW Tools, because you’d edit something together and then wait two hours for the computer to “render” it. As Tom Petty sang: “The waiting is the hardest part.”
On camera, some of the best musicians compare analog and digital sound, and as you’d expect, digital consistently comes up short. Creedence Clearwater Revival’s John Fogerty shares that young kids (used to digital recording) feel that being able to fix mistakes on the computer means they don’t have to practice. Which explains why Slipknot isn’t as good live as on record… I think they should change their name to PRACTICE Not.
Most of the greatest recordings were recorded “live” in the studio, and it’s repeatedly expressed that studio time wasn’t cheap and, back then, you had to be good. As one of the managers puts it, “Sound City was a place where real men came to record.” Apparently, cutting a record in analog is the aural equivalent of bow hunting, and that sentiment is (Roland Space) echoed by Neil Young, Frank Black, and Tom Petty. Petty expresses his distaste for Spartan digital consoles and expresses his need to play with knobs. One could argue that’s why a guy takes up a musical instrument in the first place.
I grew up in Florida, and Petty’s from Gainesville. For a late 70’s Florida rock ‘n’ roll fan, he was our saving grace, along with Lynyrd Skynyrd and The Outlaws. Just as Sound City’s track record indicates how good they were at what they did, so does Tom’s. Petty describes recording analog as capturing lighting in a bottle, and digital recording is made to sound like “settling.”
Petty tells a story in a Heartbreaker’s documentary that gives a glimpse of his analog mindset, the mindset of someone who refuses to settle. Petty was on the bill for The No Nukes Show, and the last three acts were Jackson Browne, Tom Petty, and Bruce Springsteen at the height of his fame. Petty says that Browne came off stage, and told him: “If you go on, and you think they’re booing you, don’t get thrown because they’re really just saying: ‘BRUCE!’” And Petty replied: “What’s the difference?”
Lord Carrett